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Tango and daily events

ittle has been written about the influence that the happenings and daily events that took place during the first twenty years of the twentieth century had on the musicians of that period.

All or nearly all the pieces were committed to the music staff by their composers. Politics, sports, the deeds of the brave that forged our incipient aviation, children games, the Buenos Aires characters, the commercial advertisements, etc. These subjects and many more were, undoubtedly, an important part of the basis of our tango repertoire.

We shall begin with tango pieces composed in homage to the heroes of our inceptive aviation. Undoubtedly, the engineer Jorge Newbery was the aviator with the greatest number of tunes dedicated. So we have:

“Jorge Newbery”, by Aquiles Barbieri.

“Prendete del Aeroplano”, by José Escurra. Dedicated to the President of the Aero Club, Mr. Jorge Newbery.

“El Tano Nicola”, by Luciano Bonnel, as homage to the Italians that walked along the streets of Buenos Aires, with their barrel organs, which were the first to introduce tango into the porteño homes.

“El bollitero”, by Próspero Cimaglia, a person whose duty was to to take out the dung of horses from the streets; most coaches were then pulled by horses. Later, these men were called barrenderos (street cleaners).

“Ajo y cebolla”, by Rafael Cattalano, for the vendor of garlic and onion.

“El cebollero”, by Ángel Villoldo, dedicated to the vendor of garlic and onion.

“El farolero”, by Arnaldo Barsanti, a person who, every evening before sunset, was in charge of lighting the lamps on the streets, that then were fueled with gas.

“El manisero [b]”, by José A. Grosi, a popular character until the 40s that used to sell peanuts heated on a small traveling oven.

“Qué chinche pa' mi colchón”, by Justiniano Caminos.

“Nene no te resfriés”, by Esther I. Seoane.

“Agarrate nena que hay marejada”, by Ernesto Sola.

“Dale perejil al loro”, by Ernesto Manfredi.

And it would take long to go on with the list because the quantity is extremely long and because with the above mentioned I think there is enough evidence to say that in the first twenty years of this century musicians were deeply aware of the characters and habits in Buenos Aires.